“You Are Not the Body”: (Re)Interpreting the Body in and through Integral Yoga
Policy Press eBooks July 28, 2023 DOI: 10.1332/policypress/9781529211566.003.0008 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Ethnography Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Integral Yoga practitioners |
| Duration | One year |
| Keywords | Cognitive reframing Perception Ethnography Aesthetics Cognition Epistemology Anthropology |
| Key findings | Argues that becoming an Integral Yoga practitioner involves cultivating a sense of 'bodily detachment' through a cognitive and perceptual reframing of the body. |
Abstract
Based on one year of ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and enactive immersion, the author argues in this chapter that “becoming” an Integral Yoga practitioner is intimately bound up with a cognitive and perceptual reframing of the body—one marked by the cultivation of a sense of separation or “bodily detachment.” In the findings, the author highlights several key areas in which bodily detachment is cultivated. In doing so, this chapter attends closely to both the somatic/practical and the symbolic/discursive realms, tracing the dynamic interplay between them. It highlights the importance, in particular, of looking at talk and discourse in situ in order to better understand how religious practices and discourses become personally meaningful.